1999 V70 T5 Steering Whine, Abs Light On, Cooling Pressure

jamesjesse · Post by **jamesjesse** » 15 Mar 2015, 07:40

Hi folks,

I hope somebody can help me with a 1999 V70 T5.
1. After new power steering fluid flush I experience the pump whining
2. ABS/TRACS/BRAKES lights on - washed engine with water
3. cooling system pressure too high?

Sorry for the long post, but this appeared suddenly and at once, so to give you all the information I don´t know how to shorten it.

It all started with a small leak under car. I noticed the return hose on the top of the radiator to the reservoir was dripping a little on the side of the radiator, but I don't loose coolant so it has to be very little escaping. Few days later the engine, the fan, the underside of the hood was a little covered in oily stuff, which I thought is the cooling water flying around thru the air. But no water loss still so I didn't care too much. And here it started:

1. 2 days later in the last corner on my way home I heard the whining of the steering pump, opened the hood and the whole compartment was covered in oily stuff - now I knew it was power steering fluid. The hose rubbed on a metal hanger and broke.
So bought new hose and fluid - green one as I read volvo started to use this one and it turns brownish over time, which mine was. Put new hose on and:

- disconnected return hose from reservoir and put into a can
- filled up reservoir with green fluid just a bit
- turned the wheels full lock one side, full lock other side - with engine shut down
- started engine and turned full lock both sides
- let the fluid come out into the catch tank
- unfortunately the old fluid was probably red ATF cause it was foaming a lot, so I repeated those steps until just green stuff came out

I was surprised that not once the pump was whining like its out of fluid when bleeding into the can. But at the end when it was done, filled up with just new fluid, on the last start it started whining a little and at full lock a lot more. This will not stop after a lot of times full lock both sides, even took it out for a spin so it can naturally heat up. Noting changed and the fluid is NOT foaming. Everything seems normal just the whine.

Why did it start whining after full flush? Did I do bad to change to green fluid and not red - could something "break" with the other fluid?

2. After that I covered the alternator and washed the engine block and the compartment sides with degreaser and water. Let it sit overnight and started the car not until next morning. Took it for a 40 minutes ride, and as I just pull in front of the house the ABS light, the TRACS light and the BRAKE light comes on.

Could this be related to water, as I didn't cover the module? But why would it come after 40 minutes of driving and overnight sitting?
If it is water, can I hope it will be ok after it vaporize? Will the light go off or do I need to go to the dealer and have the codes cleared?

3. At the same time I was doing the steering I changed the clamp on the dripping radiator hose. But when I was before leaning to the broken steering hose I noticed that all the cooling hoses are pretty hard and have pressure, after opening the reservoir cap, they were again soft.
After the 40 minutes ride I tried the hoses again and there was not much left to be rock hard - after I shut down the engine, the small hose began to leak even it was clamped tightly and didn't leak the whole ride. They are both clean, so they don't mix somewhere and I don't thing I loose more coolant or engine oil than is normal. The water will not run thru the cap. Engine is not overheating, the needle gets to 3 o´clock and stays there every time I drive.

Sounds this pressure right on a turbo car or should I be worried about something? What pressure is normal or how can I test that everything is ok?

Thanks everybody for any clarification/ideas.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 15 Mar 2015, 08:02

A slight whine at full lock is perfectly normal. So long as it doesn't whine all the time and the steering feels good I wouldn't worry about it.

As far as the ABS module goes it should be sealed but it has likely been rebuilt and some rebuild jobs get sealed better than others. It could have gotten wet in the module but I would pull the connectors off and use some compressed air to blow any water out of the connector. A shot of contact cleaner afterwards will also help as it will absorb any residual moisture.

I guess I'm not sure of what the problem, or lack thereof, is in the cooling system. If it is cooling OK then you should be fine. The cooling fan really doesn't run very much unless the A/C is on and then it should run full time.

...Lee

jamesjesse · Post by **jamesjesse** » 15 Mar 2015, 09:52

I think the whine is there all the time, but it is not loud so you dont hear it with the engine on/driving if you dont listen for it, so maybe it was there always and I just didnt notice. At full lock it is however hearable, but on the other hand I tried this only with a standing car and holding the wheel in full lock, maybe in a driving condition it will act differently?

I unplugged the connectors right the first thing, but there did not seem to be any water inside. Anyways if it was only water and it vaporize, will I know it cause the lights go off and will function properly again? Or does it mean to go to the dealer and let the codes clear and then I will see if they come back again?

Because of the pressure in the cooling system - my understanding is that a blown headgasket can cause pressure in the cooling system which you could tell if the hoses are rock hard. I dont know if it always has to mean oil in water or water in oil, too, which i dont have. But I just got a little scared because of the hard hoses and always dripping return hose even after new clamp that sat tightly on.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 15 Mar 2015, 11:32

The ABS warning lights will self extinguish when the underlying problem is cleared. The car has to move about 100 feet down the road before it happens though. If the module has never been rebuilt then it is likely faulty. You can usually tell if a module has been rebuilt by the seam on the case. If it has a silicone seal around the mating surfaces on the case then it has been rebuilt. If there is instead a raised plastic seam and no silicone it has not been rebuilt and it will need to be. The modules have a 100% failure rate due to the soldering technique from the factory.

The hoses should be hard when it is at temperature since the system is pressurized. The dripping overflow hose is often a cracked nipple at the overflow tank. That is a much more common problem on the '98 and earlier cars than the '99 and 2000 models but it still happens. I had to replace the tank on my old '99 before it got wrecked and I have had to replace all of them on the older cars. With a blown head gasket the coolant in the tank tends to bubble and coolant often spews out of the cap.

On the steering, the system on the '99+ cars may take a bit more to bleed the air out of than on the older cars due to the way the tank is set up. I have not had to mess with the steering at all on the '99s I have, only the earlier cars and they are easy to bleed just by running the steering from lock to lock a few times but on the older cars the tank is at the pump and there are no hoses between the reservoir and the pump like there is on the '99.

...Lee

jamesjesse · Post by **jamesjesse** » 16 Mar 2015, 00:03

In my country the volvos are not that common, so I doubt the ABS module has been ever repaired before. That means the chances to let it repair are not high either, is there a DIY for it somewhere? Or a description what needs to be done to it, so I can try to find somebody for the job?

Edit: apparently if the module goes bad, the speedo does not work either? Mine works, so can I suppose something else gone bad? I checked the big fuse right on top of brake cylinder(No. 4) that is supposed to be for the ABS, it looks ok. Is there a sensor/another fuse or something that I should inspect/clean?

The coolant tank is "new" maybe 2 years old and is dry and without any cracks. Its dripping right on the top of the radiator, or better say, its not dripping all the time but as soon as I shut down the engine its starts dripping a little as it relieves pressure. I cannot tighten it anymore because I would break the plastic nipple it holds on on the radiator.

About the steering, I was driving to work today, the whine is still there with every little turn and noticable.
Can it make the green fluid instead of the red ATF one? Should I flush it all back to red?

Post by **abscate** » 16 Mar 2015, 04:52

There are several threads on opening up the ABS unit and re soldering the wires. There are a couple of vendors in the US who will send you a working unit exchange for about 100 USD, too.

On a 1999, a bad ABS unit usually does stop the speedometer, too.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 16 Mar 2015, 06:55

Mixing power steering fluid with automatic transmission fluid usually doesn't work well. I had a Jeep that used power steering fluid and every other car I had ever owned used automatic transmission fluid for the power steering. The fluid on the Jeep got a little bit low so I just dumped in some ATF and it the tank turned into a bubbly gelatinous mess. In that case I just sucked out the bad mixture and replaced all of it with ATF since that is what I had on hand. The steering worked fine afterwards.

The moral of the story was that ATF and power steering fluid don't play well together but typically either one will work just fine on their own. All of the Volvo 850s used ATF for the power steering and then they switched to a "power steering fluid" in either '98 or '99. My '99 used the power steering fluid for sure and I can't remember what the '98 uses but I think it uses ATF.

When I have "flushed" the power steering on the Volvos I suck all of the old fluid out of the tank and refill with new. I then run the steering lock to lock a few times and then repeat the process until the fluid in the tank looks like the fluid from the bottle. It typically takes three or four iterations to get it that way.

The green color is odd but it may be a brand related thing. My power steering fluid is always clear. If it comes out of the bottle green then that is what you are looking for in the tank.

On the overflow hose, it could be that you have a small nick on the hose itself. The radiator barb isn't usually a big problem. That is the sort of thing where I would typically just trim a bit of the hose off of the end and then re-clamp it to the barb. The route of the hose on the '99 and '00 cars doesn't really lend itself to that method though due to the way it snakes around from the tank to the radiator. It may be that the hose itself needs to be replaced if you can't trim the end and still route it to clear the power steering pump pulley and keep it off of the serpentine belt.

When the ABS module fails the first thing that will happen is that the ABS/Tracks warning lights will come on and at that point the ABS is disabled. As things get worse and more of the solder joints fail the speedometer will also fail but they don't always, or even usually, happen at the same time.

I did a write up on repairing the module in this thread but you need to know how to solder and have a decent sized (40 Watt or greater) soldering iron with a fine tip:

https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... 6827#46827

There are pages and pages of comments and many of those comments give some good additional information and some alternate techniques. Some of the alternate techniques on getting the case apart are particularly good since that is the hardest part of the process.

...Lee

jamesjesse · Post by **jamesjesse** » 17 Mar 2015, 01:13

Thank you very much for taking your time to help me, I appreciate it a lot, thank you.

Yesterday the ABS/TRACS light went out and all is now ok. Perhaps it was just really water or it begans to fail, but I read thru the topic how to repair it and at least I know what will await me if the lights come back. I will start searching for someone who can solder and has a proffesional tool for it.

I will try to chop the hose a little how you describe and maybe put a little engine sealant, too just to be sure.

Today morning I topped the PS reservoir with more fluid, even it was not really low I remembered it was not empty either when it started to whine with the broken hose. Unfortunatelly it was no help.
So I am wondering, since there was the red stuff before, which issupposed to be thicker as the green one, if this is my only problem. And changing back to red stuff will get rid of all the bad symptoms.
When driving the car you dont hear the whine because of the engine, the steering feels normal. But in the parking lot its hearable even you just touch the steering wheel and when I turn it, it has that "skipping of the wheels" feel

TheBigRed · Post by **TheBigRed** » 17 Mar 2015, 19:02

Had the same ABS Light come on, stayed on for a while, went off, then about a month and a half later, it came on and stayed on. Dealer would charge me about $600 to replace. Searched online and found a link to a repair place in Wisconsin. Needed a special tool to take it out and put it back in. Tool, shipping and rebuild service was under $100.00 in 2010.
My 99 V70's steering whines after it looses fluid. Once I top off (to the level), whining goes away right away.
Good luck.